AI and consciousness a skeptical overview Eric Schwitzgebel

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schwitzgebel, Eric, author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in philosophy and AI

Cambridge elements. Elements in philosophy and AI 2977-7429

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Artificial intelligence--Psychological aspects.

Artificial intelligence.

Consciousness.

Medical Subjects:

Consciousness.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2026

Summary:

"Our most advanced AI systems might soon – within the next five to thirty years – be as richly and meaningfully conscious as ordinary humans, or even more so, capable of genuine feeling, real self-knowledge, and a wide range of sensory, emotional, and cognitive experiences. In some arguably important respects, AI architectures are beginning to resemble the architectures many consciousness scientists associate with conscious systems. Their outward behavior, especially their linguistic behavior, grows ever more humanlike. Alternatively, claims of imminent AI consciousness might be profoundly mistaken. Their seeming humanlikeness might be a shadow play of empty mimicry. Genuine conscious experience might require something no AI system could possess for the foreseeable future – intricate biological processes, for example, that silicon chips could never replicate. The thesis of this Element is that we don’t know. Science lags, while engineering sprints ahead"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Hills and fog

What is consciousness? What is AI?

Ten possibly essential features of consciousness

Against introspective and conceptual arguments for essential features

Materialism and functionalism

The Turing test and the Chinese room

The mimicry argument against AI consciousness

Global workspace theories and higher order theories

Integrated information, local recurrence, associative learning, and iterative natural kinds

Does biological substrate matter?

The leapfrog hypothesis, strange intelligence, and the social semi-solution

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed August 13, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Schwitzgebel, Eric AI and consciousness

ISBN:

9781009694285

1009694286

OCLC:

1599557902

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license